Shahrbanu

Islamic histories regarding Shahrbanu generally state that she was a daughter of Yazdegerd III, the last Sassanid emperor of Persia. with Al-Tabari and Ibn Khaldun making specific references to a marriage he had made to a woman in Merv. However, Zameer Naqvi believes Shahrbanu's mother to have been a Sindhi princess named Mah Talat or Maha Talat. She may have been a member of the Buddhist Rai dynasty, with who the Sassanid emperors had maintained good relations. The present city of Matli, where her marriage to Yazdegerd supposedly took place, may have been named after her. In addition to Shahrbanu, the historian Al-Masudi provides the names of four other children of Yazdegerd III; two sons, namely Peroz and Bahram, and two daughters, Adrag and Mardawand. While it was historically recorded that her brothers had escaped to the Tang emperor of China, Further alleged siblings have also been attributed to Shahrbanu, including Ghayanbanu, who was her full sister, and Mihrbanu, who married Chandragupta, the Indian king of Ujjain. ==Capture and marriage==

Accounts of Shahrbanu's capture generally state that she was taken during the Muslim conquest of Khorasan, either by Abdallah ibn Amir or Hurayth ibn Jabir. The princess (possibly alongside her sisters) There is disagreement between various accounts regarding the details of the story. In al-Kulayni's Kitab al-Kafi, it was Umar's decision for Shahrbanu to choose her own husband, as opposed to Ali's. Keikavus' Qabusnama includes the involvement of Salman the Persian. The Uyun Akhbar al-Ridha by Ibn Babawayh reports that the caliph in question was not actually Umar, but his successor, Uthman. In relation to this, historian Mary Boyce states that al-Qummi's account ignores that the conquest of Khorasan took place during the latter's reign, as well as the fact that Shahrbanu's supposed son, Ali, was not born until over a decade after Umar's death. ==Death==

, Iran The earliest sources regarding Shahrbanu make no mention of her ultimate fate, instead primarily focusing on the events of her capture and marriage. A third version, as with the previous account, states that Shahbanu was alive during Karbala, but includes a miraculous aspect to the story. It states that prior to his death, Husayn gave Shahrbanu his horse and bid her to escape back to her homeland in Persia. She was closely pursued by Yazid's soldiers and as she approached the mountains surrounding Rey, she tried to call out to God in desperation. However, in her exhaustion she misspoke and rather than saying "Yallahu!" (Oh God!), she said "Ya kuh!" (Oh mountain!). The mountain then miraculously opened and she rode into it, leaving behind only a piece of her veil which had gotten caught as the chasm closed behind her. This became an object of veneration, with the area becoming a shrine as well as a popular pilgrimage site. ==Historicity==

The historicity of Shahrbanu is highly debatable, with no source available which can truly confirm or deny her existence. While it was certainly within the influence of Husayn's father, Ali ibn Abi Talib, to have had him married to a captive daughter of Yazdegerd III, contemporary sources make no mention of such an event. Early histories regarding the invasion of Persia by authors such as Ibn Abd Rabbih and al-Tabari, often written with great attention to detail, do not establish any relationship between the Sassanid royal family and a wife of Husayn. The same is true for a wide range of sources, such as the Hanafi judge Abu Yusuf in his treatise on taxation, the Kitab al-Kharaj, nor Ferdowsi in his epic, the Shahnameh. Ya'qubi, who wrote around the same time as Ibn Qutaybah, was the first to suggest that Ali's mother was an enslaved daughter of Yazdegerd, stating that she was nicknamed Gazala by Husayn. The Tarikh-i Qum and the ''Firaq al-Shi'a'', both written around the 10th century, give a similar story, but state that she was originally called either Shahrbanu or Jahanshah and was later renamed Solafa. There is therefore a consistency between the early sources that the mother of Ali was named Gazala or Solafa, and that she was an eastern slave belonging to Husayn. The dispute only arises regarding her original identity and subsequent fate. Ibn Babawayh however, also writing in the 10th century, records a Shia tradition which combines the two stories. It states that Ali was the son of a daughter of Yazdegerd who died in childbirth. He was subsequently raised by a concubine of Husayn's, who was publicly assumed to be his mother. When Ali later arranged for the concubine to be married, he was mocked due to the belief that he had given his own mother away. This tradition acts to support the earlier accounts whilst also providing an explanation for the contradictions. Based on the various testimonies, Mary Boyce surmised that Ali's mother was a Sindhi concubine, who he later freed and arranged to be married. The Shahrbanu story subsequently emerged to explain away the aspects which may have been viewed as unpalatable. Later incarnations of the story may have magnified the Persian aspect with this in mind, with increasing emphasis being put on the princess's royalty. Ali ibn Abi Talib plays an important role in this, with he and Shahrbanu conversing in Persian, him insisting on her freedom and nobility of rank as well as predicting the birth of the future Imam. Subsequently, it appears that Shahrbanu served as a factor in the convergence between the persecuted Shias and the conquered Persians. Motahhari added that the Persians had no equivalent inclination towards the Umayyad dynasty. Similarly, the Umayyad general Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad is also not especially esteemed based on his maternal Persian heritage. In addition to this, Motahhari asserted that Shahrbanu is not venerated in Iran above the mothers of the other Imams, who came from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, such as Narjis, who is believed to have been a Roman concubine. ==Notes==